For the part 40 years or so, neoliberalism has reigned supreme over much of the western capitalist world, producing unparalleled wealth accumulation levels for a handful of individuals and global corporations while the rest of society has been asked to swallow austerity, stagnating incomes and a shrinking welfare state. But just when we all thought that the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism had reached their penultimate point, culminating in mass discontent and opposition to global neoliberalism, the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election brought to power a megalomaniac individual who subscribes to neoliberal capitalist economics while opposing much of its global dimension. Continue Reading…

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin no 1367, by Teressa Rose Ezell, Feb 9, 2017.

A Lakota prophecy tells of a mythic Black Snake that will move underground and bring destruction to the Earth. The “seventh sign” in Hopi prophecy involves the ocean turning black and bringing death to many sea-dwelling creatures. It doesn’t take an over-active imagination to make a connection between these images and oil pipelines and spills. Continue Reading…

… I was struck by one thing. Whiteness. The marchers were predominantly white – even in places like Nairobi. Not only were they white, they looked like they were upper middle class – able to afford the finest warm clothes and designer outfits, down jackets, sporting iPhones to record themselves. Continue Reading…

Only one fact: report that Trump hung up on Australian PM is Fake News – Published on Paul Craig Roberts.org, by blog owner, Feb 3, 2017.
Everywhere it is taken for granted that President Trump was rude on the telephone to Australia’s prime minister and hung up on him. The low grade morons at CNN repeat this endlessly as a fact, and even David Stockman, several levels higher than CNN in intelligence, assumes that this fake news report is true. But the Prime Minister of Australia says NOT CORRECT, the call ended courteously … (full text). Continue Reading…

It took corporate America a while to warm to Donald Trump. Some of his positions, especially on trade, horrified business leaders. Many of them favoured Ted Cruz or Scott Walker. But once Trump had secured the nomination, the big money began to recognise an unprecedented opportunity … //Continue Reading…

Research by INET-affiliated scholars shows the US lags far behind its peers on inclusive growth, suggesting inequality is not an inevitable consequence of globalization and technology. Continue Reading…

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commits UN member states to “leave no one behind.” One crucial component of that commitment – encompassed in the International Labor Organization’s own agenda – is decent work for all. At a time when worker frustration and disillusionment is being expressed in elections across the world, this goal could not be more important. Continue Reading…

it is a great period to be a revolutionary activist in Africa. Yet the sense of stop-start progress and regress in so many sites of struggle reflects in part how poorly the working-class, poor, progressive middle class, social movements and other democrats have made alliances. The African uprising against neoliberalism hasn’t yet generated a firm ideology. In this case the best strategy would be a critical yet non-dogmatic engagment with the various emerging forces on the left … //Continue Reading…

The mindlessness is unbearable. Amnesty International tells us that we must “fight the Muslim ban” because Trump’s bigotry is wrecking lives. Anthony Dimaggio at CounterPunch says Trump should be impeached because his Islamophobia is a threat to the Constitution. This is not to single out these two as the mindlessness is everywhere among those whose worldview is defined by Identity Politics. Continue Reading…

… to protect citizens from threats as defined by apparatchiks in Brussels – Published on Wolf Street, by Don Quijones, Jan 28, 2017.

The central authorities in Europe just launched their most important offensive to date in their multiyear War on Cash. The new move comes directly from the European Union’s executive branch, the European Commission, which just announced its intention to “explore the relevance of potential upper limits to cash payments,” with a view to implementing cross-regional measures in 2018. Continue Reading…

… Theresa May’s highly anticipated speech on 17 January showed that slowly but surely, the UK government is realising the constraints of global trade rules. At last, the aims regarding future relations with the EU are becoming clear: Britain will leave the single market, end the free movement of EU citizens to the UK, set its own tariffs, but also seek a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU … //Continue Reading…

… WILL THE UNITED STATES REGAIN THEIR FREEDOM? – Published on Voltairenet.org, by Thierry Meyssan, Jan 24, 2017.

Donald Trump refused to don the Presidential uniform of his predecessors, and dedicated his speech of investiture to mocking the System and announcing a change of paradigm. He has built his Security team around two themes – the eradication of Daesh and the opposition to 11 September – two characteristics which are aimed at putting an end to the process of globalisation (translation from french by Pete Kimberley). Continue Reading…

They call themselves the U.S. Intelligence Community, or the IC. If you include the office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which in 2005 began as a crew of 12 people, including its director, and by 2008 had already grown to a staff of 1,750, there are 17 members (adding up to an alphabet soup of acronyms including the CIA, the NSA, and the DIA). The IC spends something like $70 billion of your taxpayer dollars annually, mostly in secret, hires staggering numbers of private contractors from various warrior corporations to lend a hand, sucks up communications of every sort across the planet, runs a drone air force, monitors satellites galore, builds its agencies multi-billion-dollar headquarters and storage facilities, and does all of this, ostensibly, to provide the president and the rest of the government with the best information imaginable on what’s happening in the world and what dangers the United States faces. Continue Reading…

(my comment: yes, what Trump said was ugly for women, but my father also spoke with much contempt about us as second class, and so did the whole generation of males when I was young. This made him not a bad guy, it only made me feminist.
This said, all these women now in America’s street have nothing to f… that Trump will stop war with Russia, a war we the European women would have had to suffer if this ugly Clinton were in power? For sure I prefer some bad jokes.
You American women are blind about that? Would you prefer Washington’s Gangster-Elite in power and put Europe into war with Russia? Really?
Yes, I fear that you could succeed, Trump could be assassinated and war with Russia would become reality again.
If you insist this will happen, you certainly not get world’s most urgent threats, and for me you would have no more anything to say – Heidi). Continue Reading…

… why the Enemy Structures US Identity – Published on Global Research.ca, by Prof. John McMurtry, Jan 20, 2017.

The enemy in one form or another drives the US – the gun culture on the streets, the rich behind weapon-guarded enclaves, the pervasive violence entertainments of good vs. evil killers, the never-ending destabilizations of societies not submitting to US military and corporate globalization, and the hundreds of billions of public dollars pouring into continuous armed threats and wars. Continue Reading…